Chelsea Flower Show 2024 is back (21st – 25th May) and one Show Garden has already made quite an impact, winning the praise of Gardeners’ World stars Monty Don and Adam Frost.
On BBC One’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show preview episode (Sunday 19th May), Adam and co-host Sophie Raworth visited The National Garden Scheme Garden designed by eight-time RHS gold medal winner, Tom Stuart-Smith.
Walking through the garden, Sophie called it ‘absolutely magical’ and commended its ‘clever simplicity’.
Adam was equally full of praise: ‘I walked in, and being honest, I got goosebumps. The atmosphere is incredible, it’s calm.’ Touring the hut towards the rear of the garden which features a sink, cooker, fitted furniture and old tools on the wall, Adam continued: ‘The craftsmanship is exquisite. I’m staying here all week.’
A highlight for Adam was seeing saruma, a shade-loving herbaceous perennial, within the planting scheme. ‘I’ve never seen it at the Chelsea Flower Show, it’s related to ginger. You get that lovely yellow flower and that foliage, that is a cracker,’ he said.
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The saruma plant in Tom’s garden
The planting of multi-stemmed hazels, a deciduous tree, also made quite an impact. ‘The hazel, they make you feel comfortable but they’re brought down into the garden by the rhododendrons, then they create this rhythm that leads the eye, and then you get down to this sort of herbaceous, which is just elegant,’ Adam continued. ‘Even when you look at the materials, it’s just brick and it’s stone and it’s timber. And then textures, finishes, forms – it’s just this sort of calmness of the pale colours and the confidence to work with green.’
Later, asked to give his first impressions on this year’s gardens, Monty said: ‘I’ve had a quick whizz round, and I always try to look without making judgements, just to take it in. And first impressions are lots of lovely trees, which is great. But one tree has totally sort of blown me away and it’s a simple hazel. It’s on the National Garden Scheme Garden, Tom Stuart-Smith, it’s beautiful, beautiful.’
More on RHS Chelsea
Chelsea’s 2024 Plant of the Year winner
How to watch RHS Chelsea on TV
Fascinating facts about RHS Chelsea
The National Garden Scheme Garden: key details
What is the garden about?
With an ‘edge of woodland’ theme and appearance, the garden exemplifies the joy and associated health and wellbeing benefits of garden visiting that have been at the heart of the National Garden Scheme since 1927.
‘The National Garden Scheme is a wonderfully unique charity, and I am proud to have opened my own garden in aid of it for nearly 30 years,’ said Tom, who last designed a Show Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2010. ‘It’s a very special honour for me to be helping bring the National Garden Scheme to an even wider audience through this new garden, that has been made possible with Project Giving Back support.’
What are the key elements of this garden design?
Central to the garden design is a carbon sink timber hut where visitors and garden volunteers can gather for tea and cake, synonymous with a National Garden Scheme garden open day. A key sustainability feature, rainwater is collected from the timber hut and all hard surfaces drain into the plant beds.
The planting palette has been selected to cope with clay soil prone to drying out, reflective of the current climatic conditions. And wonderfully, a portion of the plants have been donated by National Garden Scheme garden owners. The garden is cement-free and features paving made of bricks from local Hertfordshire clay, while the other paving is reclaimed York stone.
Where will the garden relocate to?
Following the show, it will be relocated to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where it will become the garden of a new Maggie’s Centre for people undergoing cancer treatment.
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Olivia Heath is the Daily Editor at House Beautiful. Heading up all things digital, Olivia loves nothing more than uncovering tomorrow’s biggest design trends and revealing the best tips and tricks to help you decorate your home like an interior designer. Week by week Olivia shares the most stylish high street buys to help you get the look for less (while compiling her very own, and rather lengthy, homeware lust list) and showcases the best makeovers (who doesn’t love a before & after?), as well as the hottest and most unique properties on the market.
Having covered interiors and gardens for the past seven years, Olivia’s work has also appeared on Elle Decor US, Country Living, Good Housekeeping, Red, Prima, Elle Japan, Modern Living and Micasa Revista.
Prior to joining House Beautiful, Olivia worked at Reveal magazine, where she reported on celebrity and entertainment news by day, and attended showbiz parties and red carpet events by night! Olivia has an MA in Journalism with an NCTJ qualification, as well as a BA in Journalism and Media & Cultural Studies.
Source: housebeautiful.com
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